


Frostlight: First Touch

by Watergirl1968



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Jearmin - Freeform, M/M, Magik - Freeform, demi-boy armin, skinwalker Jean, witch!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10024382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watergirl1968/pseuds/Watergirl1968
Summary: Armin is a young college student, a bright demi-boy who is also a practising Wiccan. He has a bond with Jean, a tall, part-Algonquin young man who studies forestry and carries within his bloodline a secret older than time.





	

Darkness.

And then, Armin summoned fire.

A small flame curled, blue and insistent, matching the light in his wide eyes. He smiled to himself, feeding the flame twigs and sweetgrass. The little campfire gained strength, bathing the snow-covered rocks in amber.

The Northwest had seen a late January storm. After days of howling wind, the flurries had subsided, leaving the town and its surrounding farms blanketed in snow, and the trees glazed with ice. Now, in the indigo dark of early evening, the tree branches chattered and chimed as they moved.

Armin used the Kirschsteins' fire pit. It wasn't far from the Lodge where he lived with his grandfather. The Lodge itself had outdoor fire pits - more than one. It also had a large, pot-bellied outdoor stove around which one could stand, drinking hot chocolate, or cider. But, even in winter, the Lodge bustled with the comings and goings of his grandfather, Mikasa and Eren; the growl of snowmobiles; weekenders skiing by on the trails, or walking their dogs. Friends popping in to say hi, having warmed themselves at Levi's tea house, which wasn't far.

Armin preferred the quieter setting that the Kirschsteins' property afforded. The fire pit was set back in a clearing, some distance from the Kirschsteins' log home, in a stand of old maple. There was no one to hear the soft incantations that fell from Armin's lips as he fed his little fire balsam, ginger and blackberry.

It was Imbolc. February second, and the moon was almost waxing full, but not quite. Spells of attraction were best cast when the moon was waxing; spells of removal, when the moon began to wane. Imbolc was Armin's favourite day in the turn of the wheel of the year. It was a time when mother earth was thinking of waking herself, yet was not quite ready to do so. Fires were lit, to welcome and beckon the sun. Ewes were pregnant, and lactating. In town, the hardware store had removed it's display of snow shovels in favour of bright, twirling racks of seed packets. Tomorrow, Armin's grandfather would begin his seed nursery, planting tomato, pepper and herb seedlings in the greenhouse.

Armin crouched by the fire, pleased with himself. The night sky was bell-clear; a dark canopy in which the stars seemed to burn, and the moon tinted the forest in plum and blue and silver. In his hand, Armin turned over a crystal that he'd acquired. It had a pleasant vibration. He'd purchased it with the pocket money he’d made tutoring his fellow college students. The crystal wasn't large, and would make the perfect tip for a wand.

His head shot up, listening. A cry, far-off and mournful. Was it a train whistle, or a coyote? Or perhaps the howl of a timber wolf?

"Too much muttering, not much listening," said a voice off to his left.

Armin didn't raise his head, but he smiled. "That's a wolf." he remarked softly.

A long, lean form detached itself from the shadows of a forked maple. "I don't think so. I think it's a train."

Armin looked up, through his fringe of yellow hair, trying to decide if Jean Kirschstein was playing with him. Jean looked down at Armin and his fire.

"It's Imbolc," said Armin.

"Your fire smells of ginger root."

"Well, yes. It's a special day today. It's Brigid's day. It's a day to remember that spring is on its way. We light fires, to welcome back the sun."

Jean smiled, crouching down beside Armin, long arms wrapped around his knees. "Sun comes anyway, Armin. With or without you to help it."

Armin dipped a thin twig of willow into the flames. It snapped as it caught fire. "Well, I know that," his breath puffed out in the cold. "The point is to…well, to stop and think about it. To acknowledge it. Because too often, we don't. We think about school and homework and being online. We think about parking spaces and lattes and snow tires. Nobody's grounded to the earth anymore."

Jean smiled again, a little indulgently although Armin was too preoccupied to notice. "I see," he said. He took out a pocket knife and slowly began stripping the bark off of a twig.

Armin glanced sidelong at Jean. Even hunched over a fire, the lines of Jean's body were languid, flowing. He had a strong profile, like his Algonquin mother.

"Thanks," Armin ventured. "For letting me use the fire pit."

Jean shrugged. "Any time. You know you can come out here any time. It's busy at the Lodge."

"So are you ready for your forestry exam?"

Jean raised an eyebrow. "Thanks, I think so. You're a good tutor, Armin."

Armin flushed at the compliment, ducking his head a little. Jean had been home-schooled, and Armin sometimes helped Jean to select college courses, or to prepare for tests.

"Good," Armin stammered, "s-so did you learn anything about writing position papers?"

Jean turned his head, almond-shaped, amber eyes taking in Armin. Armin was layered against the cold; thick leggings and boots, a heavy skirt, sweaters and a never-ending scarf. His blond hair fell around his shoulders, one ear sticking through it, as if to announce itself.

Jean knew that the subject matter of the forestry exam had been new territory for his tutor Armin, who studied anthropology. "Did you," he chuckled, "learn anything about trees?"

"I know about trees," Armin said a little huffily. He rummaged in his pocket. "See this crystal?"

"It's nice."

"I want to make a wand, of hawthorn, and this crystal will be its tip. A hawthorn wand. And it's auspicious to ask the hawthorn grove for a branch when the moon is nearly full. Which it is."

Jean had been whittling. A rough animal form was taking shape from the twig in his long fingers.

"No hawthorn around here."

"Well, no. But not all that far. Across the river and up Concession Six."

"That's too far."

"But that's where the hawthorn stand is."

Jean stood; a fluid, sinewy movement. "It's dark. You should wait."

Silence. The slight blond stared sullenly into the fire, button nose buried in his scarf.

"Wait," Jean repeated quietly. "Not tonight."

Resigned, Armin laid his head on one knee.

Jean knelt down again, the rough-hewn little carving in his hand.

Armin looked at his friend, reached out, tentatively touched the carving, his fingers lightly brushing Jean's. He shivered.

"What's…what's it going to be?" he whispered.

"Gonna be a wolf."

__________

Jean melted into the shadows, as quietly as he had come. Across the Concession, the mournful, torn howl echoed again. That was no train whistle. Armin threw a handful of something onto the fire, which sparked green and fragrant. The moon was showing above the tops of the pines now, icy bright.

Jean watched as Armin rose, slung his shoulder bag across his body and murmured as he extinguished the fire with a few bucketfuls of snow. Interrupted, the fire hissed in protest, and smoked out. The forest remained day-bright, however, the moonlight puddling through the trees.

Armin straightened, stretching himself. He wound his scarf a little tighter against the chill. He took a look back at the Kirschstein house, brow furrowed. Stood, unmoving.

Jean felt it then; the hitch in his bones. He braced himself against a tree with an open hand. His breath quickened. The forest seemed to recede, then give way to a tableau of smells; sharp pine, gurgling sap, the smoky coals of the firepit, and Armin's scent: blood-warm, haunting, sweet musk. Armin.

Armin had forgotten his yellow scarf at Jean's house last Tuesday night. Jean had paid it no heed at first; then, as he brushed past it where it hung on a brass hook, he had caught it in one long-fingered hand, inhaled, and rubbed his cheek on it. He hadn't taken the scarf into his bedroom.He'd been too mortified to do so. But he had fallen into an uneasy sleep, squirming a little.

He watched Armin Arlert look back at the log house, purse his lips into a thin line, and then set off toward the Concession road. Jean doubled over then, his world beginning to swim.

__________

"They are more frightened of me," Armin reminded himself resolutely, "than I am of them."

As quiet as he imagined his steps to be, he knew that the small creatures of the wood would hear him crashing and snapping a mile away. He chuckled, to bolster his courage. Oh, it was cold. So cold that the snow squeaked beneath his black boots and his breath curled into the air like matinee idol smoke.

_Cross the Concession, follow the creek and go around the bend._ That's where the thick bracken of the hawthorn grove was. He had an offering to leave in the grove; a sprig of mint, in exchange for one even, fine branch of hawthorn. He'd get to the grove and be back to the Lodge before anyone even missed him.

It was beautiful, Armin thought, the way the snow drifted gently up against the trunks of the trees. Up ahead would be the Concession road. Or, wait. Which way was it now? Everything looked so different in the moonlight. Ethereal.

He stood there, shivering a little, trying to get his bearings. A sound rose over the snow then; low howls, several of them, overlaid like discordant pan pipes.

"Shoot," Armin said softly to himself. He wasn't lost; well, not exactly. He picked a direction, walking briskly, eyes darting left and right.

Shivers peppered his flesh beneath the warm layers, his belly knotted and icy.

"Where am I?" he muttered nervously. He heard what sounded like tires crunching on icy gravel. Was that a car on the Concession Road? So the road was up to his right?

Armin rounded a bend, and the trees broke for a small hill. Here, the snow glittered and danced beneath the light of the moon. The forest had gone eerily quiet.

He froze, a gasp lodged in his throat like an icy fist.

In the ghostly light sat the largest wolf Armin had ever seen, his thick coat silhouetted as if lit by a pale fire. The creature sat calmly in the centre of the clearing.

Armin's throat closed, his veins dashed with ice. He was paralyzed, his legs shaking, breath coming thin and sharp. _Don't run…don't…but what now?_

The creature did not move. Despite his fear, Armin marveled at the wolf's size, the backlit blaze of his coat and his quiet, watchful pose.

__________

A few weeks prior, Armin had come across a book of old black and white photos. Settlers mostly, who had come to the Pacific Northwest looking for timber and minerals and farmland.

There were also photos of Haida petroglyphs; pictures etched into the stone surfaces of rock and cave, older than time. Zoomorphic carvings and paintings. The raven, the turtle, the bear and wolf.

He'd brought the book over to Jean’s cabin.

"Look," he'd pointed to one of the pictures. "See the Haida etching on the side of this wall?" he'd jabbed a finger, "What do you see here?"

"That's a wolf," Jean peered at the picture.

"No," Armin breathed, "Look, Jean. Here, we have a human being. He walks, and then he crouches. Then, in the next picture, he grows ears and a tail and...he’s a wolf. Does it mean that

the figure takes on the wolf's spirit or something?"

"How should I know," Jean had upended his carton of chocolate milk. "You're the anthropology student. You tell me."

"I-I just thought…"

"My mother was part Algonquin, and she was a long way from home living out here, eh? My grandmother was Haida. That doesn't mean I know all about Haida pictures."

Armin had let out a little huff, which tickled the hairs on Jean's arm. Resigned, he reached for Jean's college textbook.

"Okay, fine. Let me quiz you on…what have we got here? Tree surgery. Okay. Tree surgery…."

When Armin rose to take his leave, a gloppy, grey rain was falling. He'd stopped on the porch, looking up at Jean, his blue eyes keen and searching. Jean had given in then.

"Your picture shows a _yee naaldlooshii_ ," Jean said quietly. "that word means skin walker. It means," he leaned forward, until his lips grazed the shell of Armin's ear, "it means that the man

takes the form of a wolf. It means he becomes the wolf.”

_It means he becomes the wolf._

____________

As Armin stood there in the moonlight, the words, those impossible words that Jean had uttered hung in the air between them. No. Insane. This was no skin-walker. It was just a timber wolf, albeit a very large one, sitting quite still, regarding him.

The wolf moved then, with a grace as familiar to Armin as his own hand. The creature raised his head, his amber eyes boring into Armin’s.

_"I asked you to wait.”_

The creature’s deep intonation filled a hollow space inside of Armin that he'd scarcely been aware of.

_"I asked you to wait. It’s not safe."_

Armin burst into tears.

The wolf cocked his head, rising. His movements, his eyes, were unmistakably Jean’s. Armin raised an arm a few inches from his body. His hand shook violently. He retracted the arm, wrapping it around his middle.

He opened his mouth, and no sound at all came out. He tried again, a raspy squeak. "Are…are you here f-for me?"

_"Only for you."_

Armin took a step forward, shaking like a leaf. He screwed his eyes shut, fighting a sob that was gathering in his heaving chest.

He squawked when he felt the soft muzzle, nosing his tears, then the tip of the wolf's tongue on his cheek.

_"Don't,"_ the resonant tone. _"Don't cry."_

Armin gasped. Jean had never touched him in this manner before. Nothing beyond a brief hug, a hand on a shoulder, a playful shove.

He raised a hand, palming the wolf's forehead. Jean's forehead. His coat was thick, and soft.

"Does your mother know about this?" Armin whispered.

_"She knows about yee naaldlooshii,"_ the words vibrated through Armin's delicate frame. _"She does not know about you."_

"About…me?" Armin breathed. "Wh-what about me?"

Jean pressed his broad forehead against Armin's smooth brow. A soft snowfall began as they stood, in silent communion.

Armin felt it then, a quickening in his blood, and the tears stopped.

There wasn't a word for it exactly; the closest he could find…was _soulmate._


End file.
